I'm planning to start selling items ( OWN BRAND) related to babies ( towels, accessories..clothing) here in Brazil, but thinking global for a future. What are the key factors I should pay attention on this market?
The biggest market of baby is hyper competitive as it’s often first around price. These are the commoditized baby items moms buy for their fast growing and messy babies - ie items that likely aren’t around for more than months because of growth or stains etc. This is the largest market segment and driven buy pricing but can include : green or more conscience materials, recycle etc for a slightly higher pricing. The competitive set in this is mom going to Target and buying another low cost 5 pack of a bigCo basic brand they know. So if this is your brand segment you’ll need to find a position that resonates - and likely at competitive low pricing or a reason for mom to pay a bit more for what she sees likely as short term disposable goods.
Other segment is the aspirational lux customers /special occasion / friend grandma gift items. Better to great quality and design and higher pricing. It’s a Smaller portion of market and driven by boutiques, catalog, Internet...
Either way or anything you choose to do - what’s your brand stand for in a consumer (moms) mind and does it matter enough to her.
The baby market in any country depends on the women living in that country. To understand this connection, we must keep wider range of view. To understand the situation Infront of us, let us take the example of African countries to understand the concept better. With positive signals for fertility decline emerging in sub-Saharan Africa, and development economists debating the potential for African countries to see a “demographic dividend,” it’s a good time to look more closely at the data linking female education and childbearing. In a nutshell, data show that the higher the level of a woman’s educational attainment, the fewer children she is likely to bear. Given that fewer children per woman and delayed marriage and childbearing could mean more resources per child and better health and survival rates for mothers and children, this is an important link. . But how much of this is causation and how much is correlation? A negative correlation is most clearly seen between different levels of female education and the total fertility rate (TFR) in a population. TFR is the number of children a woman can expect to have over her lifetime given current rates of age-specific fertility. The first figure (below) shows TFR trends over time in Ethiopia, Ghana and Kenya among women with varying levels of educational attainment. What it shows for all three countries is that there are striking differences in TFR between women with no schooling and women with a high school education. In Ghana, women with a high school education have a TFR between 2 and 3, whereas those with no education have a TFR of about 6, even as recently as 2008. Similarly, women with a high school education in Ethiopia have a TFR of 1.3. In considering whether female education drives a decline in the TFR, one might ask whether the opposite is true – do women who prefer smaller families want to study longer? However, the evidence from sub-Saharan Africa clearly supports the causal role of female education in fertility decline. For example, an education reform in Kenya that increased the length of primary education by a year resulted in increased female educational attainment, and delayed marriage and fertility. One randomized control trial found that reducing the cost of school uniforms in Kenya not only reduced dropout rates, but also reduced teenage marriage and childbearing. Another study found that increasing female education by one year in Nigeria reduced early fertility by 0.26 births.
Let us take a closer look at the causal link in Ethiopia, where 61% of women with no schooling have a child before turning 20 compared to 16% of women with 8 years of schooling. In 1994, the country did away with school fees, instituted school lunches in rural areas, increased the education budget and allowed local language classes. The 1986-born cohort of girls came of school age under the old system, while those born in 1987 were exposed to the reforms. The 1987-born cohort showed an increase in schooling of 0.8 years. A forthcoming study (Pradhan and Canning 2013) of education and fertility in Ethiopia estimated that an additional year of schooling in Ethiopia would lead to a 7 percentage point reduction in the probability of teenage birth and a 6 percentage point decrease in the probability of marriage. These are large effects, suggesting that women with eight years of schooling would have a fertility rate 53 percentage points lower than those with no schooling at all, and are consistent with observed data. Why does female education have a direct effect on fertility? The economic theory of fertility suggests an incentive effect: more educated women have higher opportunity costs of bearing children in terms of lost income. The household bargaining model suggests that more educated women are better able to support themselves and have more bargaining power, including on family size. According to the ideation theory, more educated women may learn different ideas of desired family size through school, community, and exposure to global communication networks. Finally, more educated women know more about prenatal care and child health, and hence might have lower fertility because of greater confidence that their children will survive. Female education has a greater impact on age of marriage and delayed fertility than male education. Although fertility falls when both male and female levels of education rise together, there is a large gap between male and female secondary school enrollment in sub-Saharan Africa (see figure below). Achieving gender parity in educational attainment could thus have a substantial effect on fertility rates. It is important to note, however, that education is not the only factor influencing TFR. Global data suggest that in both 1980 and 2010, countries showed a strong negative correlation between female educational attainment and TFR. However, countries have lower fertility in 2010 compared to similar countries in 1980. This suggests that other factors—access to family planning, reduced child mortality, access to work opportunities—may also influence the number of children a woman bears.
Thus, the market generally revolves around the TFR of women in the country. Not only that, female education also plays an important role in developing the baby niche market. Like other Niche markets, this market is also affected by predominantly four factors:
1. Specific target and resources allocation: When people start a springs business, they usually want to be useful for every single customer. Forget about this idea because it’s impossible in the beginning. Choose several types of springs, for example, like flat power or torsion, and focus on the production of these springs to the best quality. Cover this tiny niche first to earn your customers. Furthermore, think creatively in terms of application of your springs to get more interest in your business.
2. Talk to potential customers: Once you have decided on the products or services your business will be offering, it is the time to find your customers. Create an image of a perfect client, think of his or her needs, and try to start a strategy to make them interested in your business. For instance, for springs manufacturing you can have a very wide range of customers, including machine manufacturers and some mechanism designers. But at the same time, do not forget that flat power springs can also be used by watchmakers and hand-made artists. Keep your idea of your ideal customers flexible, you do not know who your product might end up appealing to.
3. Do market research: The more information you have, the more powerful you are in the business world. So, before you launch any kind of product, ensure that it will be in demand in the market. To do so, conduct some research in the field: learn what people are expecting from products in your niche; compare prices for similar products and services, find out what makes your competitors distinct from you.
4. Customers preferences: You need to know what people will be expecting from you in terms of your product. This means that you should decide on your target audience in terms of pricing policy and quality. To do so you can run direct market research for potential customers by asking them to answer several questions. This will help you determine the final version of your products before the launch. And do not forget that you will not be able to earn millions in the beginning. So, keep patient, and work hard to reach the heights.
Besides if you do have any questions give me a call: https://clarity.fm/joy-brotonath
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